Beds pledge too late for a grieving mother

Tragic death ... Margaret Williamson holds a photograph of herself, her son Brent and his brother Ashley. Photo: Edwina Pickles

Margaret Williamson still has the answering machine messages left by her increasingly distraught son, recorded the day he died.

They are a reminder of his unanswered cry for help, and hers.

Mrs Williamson pleaded with the medical staff at Hornsby hospital to admit her schizophrenic eldest son, Brent, 31, for observation and treatment after a paranoid episode in late June, and because he had twice tried to kill himself.

The doctor refused, she says, citing an emergency requiring his attendance, and after administering medication released Mr Williamson almost immediately.

Six hours later he was dead, hit by a train. Earlier he had tried to silence voices in his head by running at traffic on the Pacific Highway.");document.write("

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The officers Mrs Williamson called to take her son to hospital at 10.45am (when he turned up on her doorstep, agitated, after leaving the telephone messages) were from the same station, Chatswood, as those called out about 15 minutes earlier to investigate a man running towards cars on the highway and, at 11.05pm, his death at Artarmon railway station.

Hornsby hospital management would not comment on the matter due to the likelihood of an inquest.

Mrs Williamson understands there is a huge burden on facilities and doctors in NSW, where one in five people has some form of mental illness.

It was no surprise for her to learn that a NSW coroner, Brian Lulham, this week described as lamentable the shortage of places in programs for the mentally ill and criticised the way hospitals treat them. He called on the Health Minister, Craig Knowles, to ensure that people brought to a hospital with a history of mental illness were assessed "as a matter of urgency".

The director of the government's centre for mental health, Beverley Raphael, will meet Mr Lulham today to discuss his recommendations after inquests into the deaths of four other patients from NSW hospital psychiatric units.

She said the introduction of 300 new public hospital beds this year would help ease the problems Mr Lulham identified.

"We have very good clinicians who work within clear guidelines, and a regular review process, and the minister has acted rapidly to expand our services," Professor Raphael said.

Sadly, such a response has come too late for Mr Williamson.

"I pleaded with the doctor, but he just wouldn't listen. He said he'd given Brent some pills and an injection [of flupenthixol], that he seemed fine," Mrs Williamson said. "I told him they can seem fine - Brent was a gentle soul and everyone always said he was so well-mannered - but they're pretending. Later that night was the last time we spoke."

The support group SANE Australia says many of the country's estimated 2300 suicides each year are preventable. It commissioned a report by Access Economics, to be published Monday, that shows a rise in the rate of suicide among those with schizophrenia, which affects up to 20,000 Australians.